General Manager
Aftermarket Sales Australia and NZ
REDARC Electronics
Master of Business Administration
University of Adelaide, 2013

Former AFL footballer Ben Marsh is accustomed to climbing hills to get ahead. Growing up “down south”, the 20km ride from Aberfoyle Park to footy training at Richmond oval equipped him with much more than physical strength; it instilled a spirit of hard work, determination and perseverance that has proven instrumental in his post-AFL career.

Hill climbs and footy
Growing up in the Adelaide Hills, I attended Aberfoyle Park High School and enrolled in night school so that I could get my grades up high enough to get into uni to study design. At the same time, I was playing local football and attracting interest from elite clubs. I wasn’t the fittest player on the field so I started riding to training to build a better fitness base – this meant riding from Aberfoyle Park to West Adelaide’s Richmond home ground and back again two nights a week, including a hard slog up Flagstaff Road! I challenged myself to ride it all the way up every time. My hard work soon started to pay dividends on and off the field. Not only did I gain enough marks to begin a Bachelor of Industrial Design; in the same year I was also selected in the rookie draft by the Adelaide Crows. After another year of hard work on the track at the elite level I was selected to play my first game in 1998 against Sydney. I played nine games that year, including the ultimate honour of playing in the 1998 Premiership side. It was an unbelievable year that made all those rides up Flagstaff Road worth it. A career in AFL football is a fickle thing and the following year I lasted eight minutes into the first quarter before I ruptured my ACL in my left knee. It was a devastating blow but one that taught me that you can never take anything for granted and you must always have a back-up plan. At that stage AFL football was still part-time and I was able to make the most of my time juggling study and rehabilitation. My degree was a three-year course but it took me four years to complete, working around my growing football commitments. As the AFL opens doors to connections, I was able to undertake work experience as an industrial designer at Clipsal after asking Rob Gerard at a function one night. After graduating, my football journey took me to Melbourne where I played for Richmond. Although it was a brief stint, it was a fantastic living in the heartland of the AFL and playing for one of football’s biggest clubs.

The next goal
With my sporting career coming to an end, I started to look at the next stage of my career. Part of the AFL commitment to players is a program to transition you into life after football. The Next Goal Transition Program aligned players with businesses in their skillset; in my case industrial design. I was able to work for a Victorian OEM supplier to the automotive industry, designing products for vehicles including the Mitsubishi Triton and Pajero. It is a great feeling to see products that you designed driving around on vehicles. I was lucky enough to be able to continue to work for them after I started my own consultancy business and moved back to Adelaide. Again, using previous connections, I was able to pick up work at Clipsal and build a customer base. One product that I designed at Clipsal won an Australian design award and another was granted an international patent, giving me my first taste of real innovation. I enjoyed consulting to a number of companies in Adelaide and even designed a kitchen sink range for Oliveri Sinks (yes, this is the one I have in my kitchen at home!).

Cool concepts
I really enjoyed designing products, but I wanted to be the person who wrote the brief after discovering a gap in the market. I applied for a role that was outside my comfort zone as a product manager for an automotive air conditioning supplier, ADRAD. As a designer, I was very much about the importance of function and form to the user experience and the success of the product. In this new role, it was about how to build a range and a brand. I really enjoyed building the brand and learnt that you must understand your customer, what they need and be prepared to talk with them. With no knowledge of automotive air conditioning systems, I discovered the value of visiting customers and having a number of key contacts you could talk to. The other key learning I found in this role is that you need to be able to talk to all levels in the business, not just your manager or the owner but also key people throughout the organisation. For me, this meant forging a strong relationship with the team in dispatch. If needed, I would head down and join them to get stock out the door when things were busy. Eventually, I moved from the automotive into industrial air conditioning, taking up a role with Seeley International. I really liked Frank Seely’s passion for innovation and manufacturing in Australia; he pushed the boundaries and invested in new ideas and products in order to offer something that no one else could. Again, it wasn’t an industry I knew and I spent many weeks in the factory making products to understand the value they gave to the customer. I worked hard to form relationships with internal staff and customers. I learnt at Seeley that I had a gap in my business knowledge and if I was to advance my career, I needed to educate myself further.

Mastering the art of business
I started working at REDARC in 2012 and moved back into the automotive industry. Working at REDARC is the best of both worlds – being able to design, develop, manufacture and sell innovative products under the same roof is fantastic. Business owner Anthony Kittel is very supportive of anyone who wants to educate themselves, leading from the front after completing an ILF-supported course at Harvard Business School. I had a young family at the time and hadn’t studied for many years so with Anthony’s support, I undertook the Professional Management Program at Adelaide University. With the further encouragement of Anthony and then Geoff Vogt at the Industry Leaders Fund (ILF), I later applied for an ILF study grant to undertake an MBA at Adelaide Uni. I am very much a hands-on learner and doing the MBA whilst working enabled me to apply my knowledge from the course to my workplace. This made the MBA a lot more enjoyable, although it was still a huge challenge to balance work, family and study. Since my MBA, I have been able to lead projects within REDARC – from writing strategic plans, business modelling, and leading and mentoring staff, to new product development and international business growth. Throughout my career, the fundamental understanding I’ve learnt – and one that I apply every day – is that you must know your customer. There are no customers in head office, so it means you have to be out there visiting them to get direct, unfiltered feedback. This is where the gold comes from. REDARC has given me the chance to travel to nearly every part of Australia and New Zealand, into Asia, America and Europe visiting customers. It amazes me that customers will give you so much time and provide you with the most important information that any business needs. You just need to make the effort to visit them and ask!